


Normal Life

by telperion_15



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-13
Updated: 2010-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-12 15:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telperion_15/pseuds/telperion_15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock had been at his most infuriating that morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal Life

“You weren’t wearing that when you went out,” was Sherlock’s immediate comment when John walked through the door.

“How very observant of you,” John replied caustically. Because honestly, it didn’t require the superior deductive powers of the world’s only consulting detective to notice the pale blue cardigan with white embroidered flowers trailing over one shoulder that John was now sporting, or work out that there was no way it had come from John’s own wardrobe.

The only impressive part of the whole observation was the fact that Sherlock had been able to make it all, sitting as he was with his back to John and the door. Then John realised that he was reflected in the windows opposite, and he stopped being impressed altogether.

“And how is Sarah?” Sherlock asked absently, as John slumped into his favourite armchair.

“Fine, thank you for asking,” John said. He refused to enquire how Sherlock knew where he’d been.

“It was very kind of her you lend you something to wrap up in,” Sherlock continued, not taking his eyes off the laptop in front of him, his fingers never hesitating in their furious tapping at the keyboard. Whoever said men couldn’t multitask had obviously never met Sherlock Holmes, John reflected.

“Yes, it was.” John realised that actually, it was obvious where he’d been. Apart from Sherlock, he had very few close connections in this city any more. And since only two of them were female, and there was no earthly reason why John would have borrowed a cardigan from Mrs Hudson just to walk up the stairs, that left Sarah as the only candidate.

He shrugged out of the garment in question and draped it over the back of the armchair next to his shoulder. He still half-resented Sarah for making him wear it, but she hadn’t been about to take no for an answer, so John had given in, albeit with ill grace.

The movement seemed to catch Sherlock’s attention, and he glanced round, just for a moment, before his eyes returned to the computer screen.

“You really should stand further back from the kerb when you’re trying to hail a cab, John.”

“What?” John knew the word had come out a trifle aggressively, but he really wasn’t in the mood for Sherlock’s antics right now.

“It would stop you getting splashed by the passing traffic,” Sherlock added, seemingly oblivious to John’s annoyance.

John looked down at himself. “How can you possibly know that?” The question slipped out before he could stop it.

“Your trousers, John.”

“What about my trousers?”

“They’ve been wet.”

“They’re dry now,” John pointed out.

“Well, yes, of course they are,” replied Sherlock, a little impatiently. “But they were wet.” He turned suddenly, twisting round fully in his chair until he was facing John, and steepling his fingers under his chin in a gesture John recognised. This was Sherlock going into explanatory mode.

“Your trousers are pale in colour, and show any dirt clearly. The edge of the dirty water mark just above your knees is therefore clearly visible to anyone looking closely enough, as it wouldn’t be if you were wearing black or dark blue, say. You wash your clothes with fabric softener – although thankfully not a floral-scented one – but the material of your trouser-legs is stiff, as it would be if it’d got wet and then been dried rapidly in front of a direct heat source. Radiator is most likely, although I’m not ruling out the application of a hair dryer.”

“Both, actually,” John admitted grudgingly.

Sherlock smiled a brief knowing smile, and then continued. “As I thought. But the way you were walking when you came in suggests that the drying methods weren’t entirely successful, and that your trousers are still damp in some rather uncomfortable areas. Chafing, are they?”

John ignored that question. “And how did you know I was hailing a cab?” he asked instead.

“Simple. The water-mark on your left leg is higher and more pronounced, suggesting you were standing at right-angles to the road with your left side closest to it. If you’d been simply walking along the pavement you would have been further from the kerb and less likely to get splashed. The extent of the damage therefore tells me that you were standing right by the edge of the pavement. And the only reason you would have been standing at a right angle instead of facing across the road – as if waiting to cross, for example – is if you were looking up the street waiting for a cab to appear. But as another car went by it drove through the puddles in the gutter, sending up a spray of water, which hit your left leg first and foremost.”

“Fine, yes, you’re absolutely right,” John snapped. “That’s exactly what happened.”

Sherlock looked triumphant, as he always did when he deduced something correctly (which was about 99.9% percent of the time, John thought sourly), and John glared at him.

“Might I point out that I wouldn’t have got wet at all if I hadn’t been forced to leave the house in the first place,” he said.

“No one forced you to leave the house, John,” Sherlock replied serenely, already turning back to his laptop.

John’s glare intensified. Sherlock had been at his most infuriating that morning. Bored, restless, and bemoaning the unimaginativeness of the criminal classes, he’d been a hair’s breath away from using the wall for target practice again. John had thought it prudent to hide his gun away at that point, although after a while he’d started to consider _un_ hiding it again. Denied that outlet for his boredom, Sherlock had picked up his violin instead. John was used to the sound of gunfire – and although it still haunted his dreams more often than he liked to admit, at least it didn’t make him flinch, or want to clap his hands over his ears.

He’d thought he was used to the violin now as well. It wasn’t his favourite instrument, but in the hands of a master (which Sherlock undoubtedly was), he had to admit that it sounded beautiful.

Of course, even in those same hands it could also produce some of the most truly awful sounds John had ever heard. ‘Like a cat being strangled’ didn’t even begin to cover it, and it was only that day that John had started to really appreciate why Sherlock had warned him about his violin playing before they started sharing a flat.

He’d had no choice but to go out. And Sarah had really been his only option for a safe haven. Of course, he hadn’t planned to turn up on her doorstep a soaking wet mess. Nor end up sitting on her sofa in only his shirt, boxers and socks while she waved her hairdryer at his trousers and laughed at him.

Sighing, John picked up a newspaper, shook it out with an annoyed rustle, and proceeded to apply himself to the perusal of an article about global warming, and the possibility of the ice caps melting and flooding half of England with the resulting rise in sea level. It seemed appropriate, considering the whole country already seemed to be drowning under three days of unrelenting rain.

It was several moments before he realised that Sherlock was looking at him again, his eyes sweeping over John in an appraising, dissecting manner.

“What?” said John snippily, pointedly not lowering the newspaper as his eyes continued to scan across the page. Sherlock wasn’t the only one who could multitask.

“It’s a good job Sarah dried you out,” Sherlock replied. “We wouldn’t want you to catch a cold.”

That _did_ get John’s full attention. “Are you  worried about me, Sherlock?” he asked, faintly amused.

Sherlock wrinkled his nose, as if the idea had never crossed his mind. “Just don’t bring any germs you might have near me,” he said, not really answering the question. “I can’t afford to get ill.”

“Happens to the best of us, Sherlock,” John pointed out mischievously. He hadn’t experienced a sick Sherlock yet, and he wondered what it would be like. Horrible, he suspected, having a sudden vision of himself and Mrs. Hudson at Sherlock’s beck and call (more than they normally were, that was), running around bringing him chicken soup, paracetamol, and hot water bottles whenever he demanded them, while the invalid languished on the sofa wrapped in a blanket, complaining that his illness was destroying his mental faculties.

John abruptly decided that keeping any and all germs away from Sherlock was actually a very good idea.

“And how is Sarah?” Sherlock was enquiring now.

“I think you’ve already asked me that,” John responded. “And as I’ve already told you, she’s fine.”

He expected Sherlock to be irritated that John had noticed his repetition, or to proclaim loudly that ‘fine’ was dull, boring, and predictable. What he didn’t expect was for Sherlock to suddenly smile widely at him, accompanying the expression with a knowing nod.

“What?” he asked again.

“Just fine?” Sherlock said. “Not ‘brilliant’? Or ‘fantastic’? Or ‘wonderful’?”

“She’s fine,” John repeated, wondering what Sherlock was getting at.

“Ah, John.” Sherlock rose from his seat suddenly, and moved to the armchair opposite John, reaching across and snagging the blue cardigan from the back of John’s chair before he sat down in it. “You’re really very transparent, you know.”

“Of course I am,” John muttered irritably.

“Even more so than usual today,” Sherlock continued, as if John hadn’t spoken. “You really should tell the poor girl, you know.”

“Tell her what?” John said, feeling all his earlier annoyance come rushing back.

“That you don’t feel that way about her,” Sherlock proclaimed.

“What the hell are you talking about?” John demanded. “I’m warning you, Sherlock, don’t start trying to analyse my feelings – or hers. I won’t have it.”

“But it’s so obvious,” said Sherlock petulantly, as if John had taken away his favourite toy. “You’re so easy to analyse. It’s almost boring.”

“So why are you doing it, then?” John replied rudely. “Don’t you normally like more of a challenge?”

“Normally, yes,” Sherlock acknowledged. “But since nobody clever enough to present me with one is committing any crimes at the moment, you’ll have to do.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You should be.”

John raised the newspaper again, trying to block Sherlock out. He should leave, but storming out twice in one day would be a little too melodramatic, even with such provocation as Sherlock Holmes as an excuse. He didn’t particularly fancy getting wet again, either.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Sherlock said, apparently determined not to have his fun spoiled, “you really need to put Sarah out of her misery.”

“And why,” said John slowly, giving in to the inevitable, “would you say that I don’t feel like that about her?”

“She’s fine, you said,” replied Sherlock, as if that explained everything. But when John continued to look at him blankly, he sighed in annoyance, and elaborated. “‘Fine’ is something you say about an acquaintance. A work colleague. A friend, even. Not about a woman who you are in the first throes of a romantic relationship with. In that circumstance you would be a lot more enthusiastic.”

“Maybe I’m trying to throw you off the scent,” John pointed out. “Because I don’t want you prying into my love life.”

Sherlock gave him a look. And since when has trying to throw me off the scent ever worked? it seemed to say, and John had to admit he had a point.

“Fine,” he snapped. “You’re right. I don’t have romantic feelings towards Sarah. I thought I did, but it turns out that I was just grabbing at straws. I’ve been out of the loop for a long time, Sherlock. I thought a woman was what I needed in my life. I thought I needed something normal like that.” John shut up abruptly. He hadn’t meant to say all that, and he could tell that he wasn’t the only person he’d surprised.

Sherlock sniffed. “Well, I’m sorry you don’t feel like your life is normal, John,” he said, strangely flat. “I thought I had warned you.”

“No…that’s not what I meant,” John said, forcing the words out. “Look, you have to admit that our lives can be a little bit mad at times, Sherlock,” he continued. “A little bit completely bonkers, actually.”

Sherlock jerked his head slightly, the only acknowledgement John was likely to get.

“I thought I needed to counteract that. My therapist said…”

“Oh, your therapist said,” Sherlock interrupted, disdain dripping from his words.

“She was wrong,” John said simply. “I can’t do normal. Not after…after everything. I tried, but it’s not me any more.”

Sherlock just looked at him, silent for once.

“I need this,” John said, feeling awkward and embarrassed. “To be here. With you. I need the madness.” He smiled wryly. “Although I could do with a little less of the screeching violin.”

For a moment he thought that Sherlock wasn’t getting it, that John was going to have to try and explain again, horrifying as that prospect was.

Then Sherlock suddenly pushed himself out of the armchair again, and leaned over John to drop the cardigan back in the spot he’d taken it from. “You should make sure you give that back to Sarah,” he said. “She might start getting sentimental ideas, otherwise.”

John tilted his head back uncomfortably so he could look up at Sherlock. “I will,” he said, knowing he’d have to talk to her at the same time. Properly talk.

Sherlock hadn’t moved away yet. He was still looming over John, one hand braced on the chair back, fingers digging into the folds of the cardigan where it lay, the other resting on the arm for balance. Sherlock’s throat was directly in John’s eye-line, and he could see Sherlock’s pulse beating under the skin, steady and regular.

“Germs, Sherlock,” he reminded the other man, suddenly needing a way to break the odd mood that seemed to have descended upon them. “I might be about to sneeze on you.”

Sherlock did draw back then, although he didn’t look in any way startled or disgusted by the prospect. Instead he merely straightened up slowly, not taking his eyes off John. “I’d survive.” Then he shrugged. “Probably.”

John thought about sneezing on him on purpose for that, but settled on smiling instead.


End file.
